Has anyone switched from iPhone to Galaxy S3 and then went back to iPhone?

[dojoman]

As the title says has anyone switched from iPhone to Samsung Galaxy S3 and then go back to iPhone?
I've had iPhone since first gen and has upgraded every year since then but I'm thinking of switching to Android with Galaxy S3. I like a few cool features like face unlock and LED notifications but I'm not completely sold. Every time I use my 4S it seems like better experience even though it lacks some features I like from Android. But Android is kind of a mess with so much clutter (so many settings).
But has anyone switched and gone back to iPhone? What are your reasons???
I'm definitely waiting until Wednesday to see what Apple has to offer with iPhone 5 but I think the leaks already speak for themselves, hopefully "there's one more thing" on the table.

 

[BFizzzle]

im in the same boat too, ive been thinking about switching.. going to wait till the 5 is announced wednesdy and if im not satisfied im going to get a sIII or maybe the galaxy.


you might want to check the alternative to ios section.. there is several threads about users who have switched and switched back. SIII devices and others


https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/157/

 

[aziatiklover]

This is me for this 2012 year.

iOS>android>webos>windows 7.5 mango>android> now waiting on the new iphone.

 

[BoxerGT2.5]

User related issues it may be easy, but visually, it's hard going from the S3 screen to looking at that tiny 4S screen.

 

[Hackintosh Sr.]

Yes I have had every iphone and multiple android phones. I wanted a bigger screen and LTE, so I got an S3. I don't care how big the screen is on the iphone 5, I am getting rid of this POS.

I thought android would finally have caught up with ICS/Jelly Bean....but nope.

My opinion. I am sure I will get mad Android hate from this post.

 

[BoxerGT2.5]

Yes I have had every iphone and multiple android phones. I wanted a bigger screen and LTE, so I got an S3. I don't care how big the screen is on the iphone 5, I am getting rid of this POS.

I thought android would finally have caught up with ICS/Jelly Bean....but nope.

My opinion. I am sure I will get mad Android hate from this post.

No ones gonna get mad or hate for you wanting to use inferior products. To each their own.

 

[randy98mtu]

I tried it last week. I was drooling over the S3 for the past few weeks and tempted several times to go get one. I caved to temptation last Friday. Friday afternoon I was loving it. So many new features, widgets, settings, etc. I got iSyncr to get my music onto it and PowerAmp to play my music, including alac files. Saturday morning I started just using the phone the way I normally would. I started getting frustrated looking for things. The appearance of things was not as appealing. Apps didn't work individually or together as well. Each app was a little different. I thought the big screen would be awesome. Well a lot of common tasks had buttons at the top of the screen. I'm 6'2" so my hands aren't small, yet I was reaching to hit those buttons with 1 hand. Things like swapping tabs in a browser was at the top right. Adding a tab was in the top left. The mail application didn't have swipe to delete, so I had to mark them, then the trash can is at the top right of the screen. I just kept running into it. Everything was a long reach.

As for the display itself, colors were way over saturated. I'm into photography and love showing my photos on my phone. The colors looked horrible. To the photography point, I did like that the photo app shows the exif data in a very discrete way when you are viewing the pictures. Aside from that, my albums were in "no particular order." They are named years, for crying out loud, and they were all over the place.

Everyone keeps telling me "there are hundreds of apps to do this or that..." The apps out of the box from Apple just work, seamlessly, cohesively. By Sunday afternoon I put my sim back in my iPhone. To me the ideal is an iPhone jailbroken. I can put my weather widgets on the home screen and lock screen. The jukebox widget to control music on any screen. I can tweak the icons, make the smaller and more transparent. Turn off icon and folder labels. I make folders transparent with no background. I am far happier with a jailbroken iPhone than I was with Android.

I did like the notification LED. The phone felt great in the hand, it was just too hard to reach in real world use. I did already have an instance where I pushed down the home button and it went down at an angle because of my case and got slightly stuck under the glass at the top edge. Not something I'd expect from a "flagship" device. I like the way Android handles home screens and widgets. Just a 4x4 grid, put icons wherever you want. Put widgets from 1x1 to 4x4 on any page. Don't like the order of your pages, you can just move them around. (you may be able to do this on iTunes with an iPhone, I can't remember)

In the end the Android was a bunch of eye candy but the iPhone is more user friendly for me. And jailbroken the iPhone is nearly perfect to me.

 

[x986]

I took a 30 day test drive on some Galaxy (SII?) prior to getting the 4s. Aside from some minor issues the biggest reason for staying in the Apple tent was that I felt very vulnerable with Android apps. I had a couple of minor security issues, but felt like I was walking down a dark, VERY dangerous street alone at 3AM.

 

[Vengeful]

I currently have the gs3 and planning on going back to iPhone. I like the s3 a lot as a smartphone, I just miss a lot of the apps I had, I found perfect replacements for some but others that were the same apps had missing features, Also a few little bugs got to me after a while, and i didn't like how android and 3rd party apps manage notifications, u can't turn them off on some apps.

 

[Mgf95]

I just picked up a SG3 yesterday to "rent" for a week or so until the new iPhone is announced and then I'll decide which phone I want. So far it blows the iPhone 4s out of the water in every way possible IMO. The only things I like more about the iPhone is iMessage (cause my friends are all in iMessage group chats), the spell check, and the fact it does integrate well with my Mac. Apart from that I love the phone so far. But I'll probably end up with an iPhone because it integrates better.

 

[dojoman]

Sounds like I think I want to stick with iPhone. I was afraid similar issue might pop up with bigger screen and definitely not sold on Android platform. The overall iOS ecosystem and quality of apps is definitely hard to move on. I think I will jb iOS 6 when it comes out.

 

[randy98mtu]

I forgot a few other issues I still hadn't resolved with the S3. I would have to do "something" with all my DRM music. Not a ton, and I knew it going in. Also none of my music videos played, and I'm not sure if my movies (Apple Universal and Apple TV 3 encoded) would play on the phone. Not a huge deal to me either. What WAS a big deal was that it didn't play nice with my Ford Sync. Plugged into USB, it said "no music found" and connected via bluetooth, the volume was inconsistent. Also after I shut the car off, the music would blare from the phone speaker for a second before it paused.

I'm sure solutions could be found for some/many of the issues I had. But with Apple I don't have to look for solutions. As they say, "It just works." It's not without flaws and hiccups, but more often than not, I find it to be true.

 

[daveathall]

I got a SGS3, would not dream of going back to a 4S, the new iPhone will need to be good to tempt me back.

 

[Sensamic]

I took a 30 day test drive on some Galaxy (SII?) prior to getting the 4s. Aside from some minor issues the biggest reason for staying in the Apple tent was that I felt very vulnerable with Android apps. I had a couple of minor security issues, but felt like I was walking down a dark, VERY dangerous street alone at 3AM.

Great metaphor! Funny.

 

[Mac.World]

Wouldn't dream of going back to the iPhone. S3 does everything better, faster and easier. Some people need to have the OS to do everything for them or don't mind having Apple make all the choices for them. That just isn't for me. Colors on the S3 screen are deeper, lush, and blacks are inky. The iPhone washes out colors to much. The softer blue hue on the whites is more preferable to me.
And of course, the iphone is antiquated in the hardware department and appears it will still be that way with the new one. No NFC chip is the rumor. Dumb move. Tiny battery and with LTE it will only take a couple of days before we see a crap load of online whining about crappy battery life. Gonna laugh my butt off.

 

[nickchallis92]

I'm into photography and love showing my photos on my phone.

personal highlight from that post

photographers buy really expensive cameras and spend ages getting good at taking the right photos.

then show it off on a 3.5" screen. brilliant.

 

[soulreaver99]

Every time I switch my Galaxy S3 SIM into the iPhone 4S (running iOS6) during the weekends to use my S3 as an arcade emulator on my big screen, I realize more and more of the iPhone's limitations. For example, I can't post a photo straight from the photo gallery to flickr or instagram, download any file type and email Word, Excel, Power Point, etc after editing them o the phone. Sure I can do it with drop box but it's kind of retarded which is why it doesn't suit my needs for work.

Iphone for the weekends is great. While I'm playing old Neo Geo Games on my Galaxy S3, I have the iPhone for practical phone functions such as text, calling, and web. Still hard going back to the small screen though as I'm spoiled by the brilliant large display of the S3. For people that read and send a lot of emails, it makes a huge difference.

 

[randy98mtu]

personal highlight from that post

photographers buy really expensive cameras and spend ages getting good at taking the right photos.

then show it off on a 3.5" screen. brilliant.

I should carry a big screen around with me? I'm not a professional, it's just a hobby. Yes, if I PLAN to show pictures, I want a bigger screen. If I am just having a conversation with someone, it's nice to pull out the phone and show them. I'd rather they see a 3.5" version of my picture as I processed it on my laptop than a 3.8" version (3:2 format, the 4.8", 16:9 screen does NOT make the picture 4.8") that is WAY over saturated and NOT what I saw when I processed it on my computer.

In this way, even the new "larger" screen on the iPhone 5 will be the same size, as the width isn't changing.

If you want the phone to re-crop your image and show an over saturated 4.8" image, by all means, use the Galaxy S3.

 

[joe8232]

Just out my s3 on eBay and am going to get a new iPhone. I liked the s3 but there are subtle things I miss about my iPhone, AirPlay streaming to airport express for example. Also, iOS just seemed more fluid in my experience. Will miss the big screen though

 

[3bs]

I had a Galaxy Nexus for 2 weeks earlier this year. It was a great phone and I enjoyed it but I missed my 4S too much so I went back to it up until about 2 weeks ago. I got a GS3 and for some reason I didn't miss my iPhone like before. Now it's been 2 days since I'm back to my 4S but only because my GS3's screen broke so I'm waiting on my new one to arrive (gave my old one to my mom to fix and use for herself). I can't stand my 4S now! The screen is tiny and the auto-correction is terrible compared to SwiftKey! I can't wait for my new GS3 to arrive so I can stop this suffering. I never thought I'd say this but the GS3 is just that great!

 

[tgi]

As numerous other people have mentioned, I too have switched from the 4S to the GS3. I actually traded my 4S for a GS3. So people are switching back and forth all the time. The GS3 is a better phone for me, I can't imagine going back to an iPhone right now. Maybe it has to do something with using the same form factor with the 4/4S for 2 years+ and I just needed change.

The only thing I miss about the iPhone are the apps and group messaging with other iPhone users.

 

[dojoman]

As numerous other people have mentioned, I too have switched from the 4S to the GS3. I actually traded my 4S for a GS3. So people are switching back and forth all the time. The GS3 is a better phone for me, I can't imagine going back to an iPhone right now. Maybe it has to do something with using the same form factor with the 4/4S for 2 years+ and I just needed change.

The only thing I miss about the iPhone are the apps and group messaging with other iPhone users.

Are the apps on Android just as polished as ios apps? It's something that bothers me a lot. Most iOS apps seem to have nicer looking interface with nice fonts whereas Android seems put together last minute. But then I haven't tried that many Android apps but there are some functionality lacking. For example I use app called 1password on my iPhone and it syncs all my password from Mac and iPhone all the time, I can enter new password database on iPhone and it syncs across all iOS devices. But similar app on android is completely broken, it functions as database read only.

 

[Calidude]

Are the apps on Android just as polished as ios apps? It's something that bothers me a lot. Most iOS apps seem to have nicer looking interface with nice fonts whereas Android seems put together last minute. But then I haven't tried that many Android apps but there are some functionality lacking. For example I use app called 1password on my iPhone and it syncs all my password from Mac and iPhone all the time, I can enter new password database on iPhone and it syncs across all iOS devices. But similar app on android is completely broken, it functions as database read only.

The apps on Android are hit and miss. Some are great and have the Holo interface, and some are not. It won't change until every Android user has Android 4.x or higher and Google starts forcing every new app to conform to Holo UI standards.

As for the quality of the apps themselves, that's up to the app dev.

I must say though, all of the apps I use are Holo compliant and do everything they did for me on iOS so if you actually have standards yourself and go for good apps only, you won't be having a problem.

 

[dojoman]

The apps on Android are hit and miss. Some are great and have the Holo interface, and some are not. It won't change until every Android user has Android 4.x or higher and Google starts forcing every new app to conform to Holo UI standards.

As for the quality of the apps themselves, that's up to the app dev.

I must say though, all of the apps I use are Holo compliant and do everything they did for me on iOS so if you actually have standards yourself and go for good apps only, you won't be having a problem.

Can you list some apps with Holo UI design? Some iOS apps are also junk, definitely not as polished looking as others.

 

[Calidude]

Can you list some apps with Holo UI design? Some iOS apps are also junk, definitely not as polished looking as others.

This is NOT a complete list, but here is what people are submitting to this thread.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/8/2933271/android-holo-themed-apps-organized-list